


Poking the Bear

by Jaakkola



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Acherus: The Ebon Hold, Gen, In-Laws, World of Warcraft: Legion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaakkola/pseuds/Jaakkola
Summary: Whitemane's not alive, but she's not dead either.The company she's to keep is interesting, at least, including one familiar face.
Relationships: Darion Mograine & Sally Whitemane
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Poking the Bear

**Author's Note:**

> i love one set of in-laws

Whitemane did not have a breath to hold anymore, but if she did, there was no doubt in her mind that she would be holding it. While death had freed her from the afflicted madness she had in life, everything that greeted her in undeath was still utterly jarring to her—which was mildly putting it—including one person in particular. With a steady hand that belayed any hint of hesitation, she knocked on the door in front of her.

“Enter,” came a voice from within.

With her head held high, Whitemane opened the door and entered the Highlord’s chambers. Said chambers were hardly befitting of a highlord, even an undead one, in her opinion. It was small and bordering on cramped, a bed lining one wall and an armor stand against the other. There was a small table in the middle of the room, a mess of papers and assorted junk calling it home. The only real remarkable thing about the room was the fact he was afforded a view. Granted, with how the floating necropolis was positioned, the room was facing away from the Broken Isles, only giving the room’s resident a view of the dark waters below and, if one craned their neck far enough, the island Acherus hovered over.

Whitemane closed the door behind her, turning back in time to spy Mograine sparing a glance her way. “A bed, Highlord?” she asked. “And here I thought that the undead didn’t need sleep.” They did not, and as far as she knew, beds didn’t come standard in the quarters. Her’s certainly didn’t have one, at the very least.

“They don’t,” he said, clearly not feeling the need to explain himself. He had turned back to the table and began to pull off his gauntlets. “I doubt you’re here to talk about my room.”

Testy. “I was curious about something, something about you.” Mograine didn’t halt his motions as Whitemane spoke. “Did you order my resurrection?”

“Through the Lich King’s foresight, it was his will.” Whitemane could just make out the grimace that crossed Mograine’s face from underneath his helm, as if the words left a foul taste in his mouth.

“You didn’t object to it, though.”

“There is much at stake, too much for me to be objecting over every trivial detail in the plan.”

Whitemane didn’t appreciate the implication that her being damned into undeath was a _trivial detail,_ but any anger she would have over that was dwarfed by something else entirely. She stood, watching Mograine as he was unstrapping a pauldron. “Take off your helmet.”

That got his attention. Mograine turned to face her. “What,” he asked, pulling off his pauldron and setting it down on the table. There was a crude semblance of amusement in the slight curl of a grin across his face. “Don’t believe it’s me? Don’t believe that Renault’s brother would let such a thing happen to you?”

“I simply want to satisfy a morbid curiosity,” she shrugged. It was true enough.

With a cant of the shoulders, Mograine obliged her. He reached up and pulled his helmet off, setting it down onto the table beside the pauldron. It disrupted enough of the mess to send a small knife tumbling onto the floor. He looked back to Whitemane, holding her gaze when she met his eyes.

While Whitemane hadn’t been keeping track, she knew that at this point, Mograine should have been well into his twenties, but the sight that greeted her was one of a young man that was barely an adult. Even in death, while necromantic powers fought off the worst of the decay, there was an undoubtable youthfulness about him. His dark red hair reached his shoulders, framing his pale, grayed face. He had a goatee that seemed to not have fully grown in, and never will. When Whitemane met his eyes again, she found the steady blue glow steeped in challenge. “Satisfied?”

Whitemane returned with her own look of utter disinterest; she hadn’t gotten this far in life—bad choice of words—letting a Mograine think he has the upper hand in conversation. “I was expecting something far worse; that is just boring.”

Mograine scoffed. “Sorry to disappoint.” He turned back to the table, hand finding his other pauldron, still attached at the shoulder. “Now, did you just want to gawk at my face, or was there something you actually want?”

Light, he was so much like Renault, it almost made her mad. Whitemane had quickly learned that most of her emotions had faded, leaving only rage to bubble up inside her at nearly any inconvenience. Apparently, that was a common side effect for the undead, and as it were, the undead had many, _many_ things to be angry about.

Whitemane weighed her options; tell the truth or make a smart comment and leave. She settled for middle ground as Darion placed his other pauldron on the table. “I wanted to see if you were still recognizable. It’s been a while since I last saw you, after all.” From where she stood, she could see the frown Mograine gave the table at her words. “You remember that day, don’t you?”

“Enough,” Mograine said, turning away more so that his back was to Whitemane. “If you have nothing of import to say, leave me.”

“I’d argue that the past is important—”

That was one poke too far. Mograine whipped around towards her, the motion so abrupt that the wisps of necromantic magic from his eyes trailed around him in a semicircle before they could dissipate. His eyes themselves blazed brighter with his rage. “Let me make two things very clear for you, _death knight,”_ he said in that tone of quiet anger, where the words were choppy and over-enunciated with seething rage as the speaker tried desperately to hold onto their sense of civility long enough to get their point across. “First, you are _dead_ , and your continued existence is entirely on borrowed time. You do not have time to _reminisce_ about the past, you barely have the time to exist as is.” Mograine crossed the room towards her, shoulders back and chin up with unbridled fury. All it did was make Whitemane realize that Darion was the shorter brother. “Secondly, I am the Highlord of Acherus. When I give you an order, you will listen and you will obey, or you will find yourself _without a tongue.”_

Mograine looked down at her, and Whitemane stared right back up, her own anger threatening to boil over. She, however, was not a child that couldn’t control their emotions, so she didn’t say a word. “Do I make myself clear?” Mograine asked.

 _Don’t ask about when he was alive,_ she mentally noted. “Yes, Highlord.”

“Get out of my room,” he demanded next, and despite how utterly childish that sounded, Whitemane did not comment on it as she left.

**Author's Note:**

> i've got so many thoughts about darion i need to pen down but i got a shaw manuscript i need to post first.


End file.
